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Keel laid for Royal Navy’s next-generation nuclear submarine

25th March 2025 - 09:59 GMT | by Tony Fyler in Swansea

RSS

The ceremony took place in the shadow of a completed section of HMS Dreadnought. (Photo: Royal Navy/Crown copyright)

HMS Dreadnought will be the first of the four Dreadnought class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) scheduled to enter service in the early 2030s. Following its keel-laying ceremony last week, Shephard takes a deeper dive into the class which will eventually replace the Royal Navy's long-standing Vanguard class of boats.

HMS Dreadnought, the lead vessel in the Royal Navy’s new Dreadnought class of nuclear submarines, had its keel-laying ceremony at the Barrow-in-Furness shipyard of BAE Systems on 20 March.

While the ceremony was largely symbolic, as the majority of the construction work on the first of the four-vessel class has been completed, it marked an intention to push forward with the replacement of the UK’s Vanguard class submarines which currently carry the country’s nuclear deterrent.

According to Shephard Defence Insight, the whole life cost of the four new submarines will be £31 billion (US$42 billion) across the vessels’

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